1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of software-based tools. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method that provide real-time queue and agent statistics through a display tool operating in a Windows.TM. environment.
2. Description of Art Related to the Invention
With the continual advancement of technology, many businesses have implemented or are in the process of implementing customer relation support groups having agents who provide technical advice, product information, and sales information to current and potential customers over the telephone. For large corporations selling a wide range of products, the support groups may be divided into a number of call centers trained to handle questions about specific product(s) or service(s).
Referring to FIG. 1, each agent of the support group currently is provided with a workspace having a computer 100 and a phone 110 from which the agent can "log" into a private branch exchange ("PBX") 120 remotely located from his or her workspace as shown. The PBX 120 performs the telecommunication switching of calls received from public telephone medium 130 (e.g., telephone lines as shown, radio frequency, etc.). When an agent "logs" into the PBX 120, the PBX 120 becomes aware that the agent is ready to receive calls from persons having questions regarding a specific product(s) or service(s) assigned to the agent. As the number of calls pertaining to the specific product(s) or service(s) increase and agents are temporarily unavailable, the PBX 120 temporarily places the caller on "hold" in accordance with a first-in, first-out "FIFO" queue located within the PBX 120, until a responsible agent is able to handle the call. The PBX 120 supports multiple queues.
The phone 110 includes a liquid crystal display 111 and one or more control buttons 112a-112n ("n" being arbitrary). The liquid crystal display 111 provides a limited display of alpha-numeric characters (e.g., 40 text characters). Upon depressing a first control button 112.sub.1, the agent is able to "log" into the PBX 120. Thereafter, upon depressing a second control button 112.sub.2, the agent is able to ascertain real-time queue statistics (e.g., number of calls outstanding) for the queue associated with the product(s) or services supported by the agent. Likewise, the second control button 112.sub.2 may be further depressed to ascertain call center or agent statistics such as the number of callers queued for other products supported by the technical support group, his or her individual or call center's statistics (e.g., average call time) and the like.
While the phone 110 may provide limited information to the agent, it possesses a number of disadvantages. One inherent disadvantage is that the phone 110 is separate from a personal computer from which the agents may be able to access information to answer various complex questions by the callers. Another disadvantage is that the liquid crystal display 111 of the phone 110 has limited viewing capability and is restricted to text characters which may be more difficult to reference and conveys less information than graphical illustrations. Yet another disadvantage is that an agent is only able to obtain information about queues that he or she has access (i.e., is "logged" onto the PBX that supports those queues). This poses a problem for agents receiving calls from other company owned call center sites, such as other remote PBXs, due to extreme call volume, temporary closure of the site in observance of a national holiday, or any other situations at the site.
A further disadvantage associated with the phone 110 is that it does not provide a broadcasting mechanism which would allow a supervisor of the call center support personnel to transmit an important message to a certain call center support group or to an individual agent.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a local area network "LAN" based system and method that overcome the above-identified disadvantages.